Memory While We Often Speak

¶ … Memory

While we often speak of ourselves as having a 'good' or a 'bad' memory, the nature of human learning and the process of encoding memory is considerably more complex than simply being 'good' or 'bad' in terms of memory storage and retrieval. Take, for example, something as simple as chewing gum, a rote motor activity. Anecdotally, chewing gum has been thought to enhance memory and some studies support the veracity of this hunch (Baker et al. 2004). But another study found that while participants' noted "a perceived change in state following administration of flavorless gum or mint-flavored strips" their improvement in memory was subjective rather than objective, based upon test results (Johnson & Miles 2009, p.293). Further study has yielded the finding that while word type can improve recall -- concrete rather than abstract words are easier to remember by test subjects -- neither chewing gum nor sucking on a piece of candy improved subject's ability to remember different types of lists of words (Overman 2009).

However, regarding olfactory stimulation, the effect of context dependency is quite strong. Pointer and Bond (1998) found that when comparing the use of an olfactory stimulus vs. A visual stimulus, there was a significant context-dependent enhancement effect when test subjects were called upon to recall a prose passage when prompted by a scent but not a visual stimulus they experienced during the learning process. Even in relatively primitive animals scent has been found to exert a powerful effect upon memory: when pond snails were operantly conditioned "so that the animals perform aerial respiration significantly less often," snails which were "trained with the food-odorant procedure… could only exhibit recall if tested in the food-odorant context and vice versa with the standard training procedure" (Haney & Lukowiaki 2001, p.35). This parallels what Smith (1985) found in a study of learning with music -- when a list of words was learned in silence, recall was the same regardless of whether the environment had quiet, music, or white noise in the background, but if learned in an environment with music, memory was enhanced by the presence of music during the recall phase of the test. However, vocal music was found to be relatively disruptive to recall efforts, versus instrumental music, for individuals who normally studied without music. These subjects performed best on memory tests when studying without music; individuals who studied with music in their day-to-day lives showed no difference when asked to study with vocal, instrumental, or no music before taking a memory test (Smith 1985).

Not all forms of contextual memory enhancement operate in the same fashion. A literature review by Smith & Vela (2001) found "that environmental context-dependent memory effects are less likely to occur under conditions in which the immediate environment is likely to be suppressed… Likewise, memories of experiences may vary in how much they are affected by environmental surroundings, both when events are originally experienced and when events are remembered" (Smith & Vela, p. 203). When researchers gave high priority to enhancing the effects of the test environment, subject's memories were more likely to be altered.